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It may take 50 or 100 years for people to pay proper tribute to Jerry Seinfeld’s insights into the human condition. After all, when Shakespeare was churning out his comedies and tragedies, people saw them as lively tales with compelling characters; but it took later generations of scholars to pontificate with straight faces about how Shakespeare “invented” the modern human sense of self.

But already it’s telling that whole academic studies often tell us no more about people than what Seinfeld has been able to figure out on his own. The whole range of human foibles is catalogued in the nine seasons that his self-named show was on the air. And the Internet is now filled with life lessons from the show.

And as we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the program's birth, for our own purposes we can find three lessons from the show about the task of leadership.

1. “It’s not a lie if you believe it.” In other words, conviction counts for a lot.

When Jerry is told to take a polygraph test to verify his claim that he never indulged in that guilty pleasure, Melrose Place, he seeks tips on insincerity from liar extraordinaire George Costanza. George finally yields the tersely magnificent observation, “Just remember: It’s not a lie … if you believe it.”

No, I’m not saying the takeaway is for managers to lie, but I am suggesting that George offered the most crucial insight into the art of persuasion.

Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner once quipped that a strong point of view is worth 80 IQ points. That’s the power of conviction.

And an acting teacher once told me, “Acting isn’t about lying. Acting is about the truth.” That sounds contrary to common sense, but she was right. The reason a good actor is such an amazing communicator is because he or she can take on a role and truly bring it to life, by finding the human truth inside that fictional role and bringing it out.

Most managers don’t know how to own the leadership roles they play in the manner that good actors own the roles they play. (That’s why I argued in my previous post that, if you as a manager can’t say something with conviction, you’re better off not saying it at all.)

To paraphrase Martin Luther, “If you’re going to sin, you might as well sin boldly.” And if you’re going to make an argument or spell out a vision, do it boldly or just don’t do it.

And it begins, as George noted, with you being the first one to internalize it and embrace it and believe it.

2. People are horrible and wonderful and amusing. So have a sense of patience and a sense of humor when leading them.

This worldview is what makes that show unique. It’s a celebration of people at their most insecure, their most self-interested and their most entertaining. (But of course, if Seinfeld and co-creator Larry David were true misanthropes, they’d have used their wondrous grasp of human nature to become con artists instead of hilariously revealing entertainers.)

Their show is a form of reparative therapy for anyone who’s had to deal with this gang of idiots known as humanity, and certainly a comedic release for anyone who’s had to manage any portion of our gang.

Yet there’s no trace of either cynicism or sentimentality in the show. While its later seasons weren’t as biting as the earlier ones, it never devolved into a syrupy mush as did M*A*S*H in its final seasons, when even the worst characters began to take on saintlike qualities and motives.

That’s why, in the Seinfeld finale, an honest reassessment of the characters’ past actions results in them getting jail time. A little punishment was only fitting, in the brutally honest Seinfeldian worldview.

3. You may want to give people who “get” the showan edge in the hiring process.

Granted, most people entering the workforce today weren’t alive when Seinfeld first captured the popular imagination and rewrote our vocabulary. But thank heaven for reruns and the Internet and whatever new forms of communication are still to come, which can allow the show to enlighten new generations about the messiness of life together.

“Seinfeld was a show about norms, not nothing,” Sam Sommers wrote in a 2011 Psychology Todayarticle. “At its minutiae-focused best, the series was a 22-minute weekly discourse on the unwritten rules that guide social interaction …. And Seinfeld attracted an audience by exploring those very complexities.”

The show masterfully nailed social dynamics regarding interpersonal politics, taboos, envy, insecurity and other building blocks of human relationships. So if you’re dealing with a true aficionado of the show, you know you’re likely dealing with someone with a certain baseline of social awareness and emotional intelligence. And the importance of that can't be underestimated.

Rob Asghar is the author of Leadership Is Hell: How to Manage Well and Escape with Your Soul (2014, Figueroa Press).